Withdrawal Policy

Dropping Classes and Voluntary Withdrawal

Students are responsible for formally dropping or withdrawing from courses using the online registration system, PAWS at paws.gsu.edu. Students should not simply stop attending. Students should be aware of the financial and academic consequences of dropping and withdrawing from courses by consulting with an academic advisor and referring to information concerning the tuition refund schedule found on the Office of Student Accounts’ web page and by referring to information on the Office of Financial Aid’s web page, which are located on the gsu.edu website.

Georgia State University reserves the right, at any time during the semester, to drop any student from classes for failure to pay tuition and fees. However, students should not assume that Georgia State will drop them from classes for failure to pay tuition and fees.

Registration Time Periods

Adding/Dropping Time Period: When registration opens for the term up until 5 p.m. the first Friday of the term, students may:

Add courses on PAWS

Drop courses on PAWS to no longer appear on the student’s official transcript. Note: Students will no longer be charged tuition for courses that are dropped at this time unless an equal credit hour course is added as well. (Refer to the tuition refund schedule on the Student Account web page at gsu.edu. Note: dropping courses and lowering your credit hours for the term may have consequences academically and for financial aid eligibility)

After this time, students will not be able to add or drop courses on their own.

Schedule Adjustment – After the first week of classes up until the Midterm

Students may withdraw from a class or classes on PAWS.

Students will receive a grade of W or WF for any class withdrawn during this period depending on whether or not they have exceeded their limit of withdrawals with a grade of W.

Specifically, students will automatically be awarded a W if they have not exceeded their limit and a WF if they have. Grades of W and WF appear on the student’s transcript. (Note: A grade of WF is treated as an F for GPA calculation purposes.)

Note: The last day for a student to add a class in PAWS is the first Friday of the term at 5 p.m.

As of the second week of classes, faculty have the discretion to request to add or drop students from classes if an administrative academic error has occurred. Factors such as space availability and health and safety regulations may apply to such requests. During the second week of classes, faculty have until Friday at 5 p.m. to submit a request to add or drop students from classes.

After the midpoint of the term: During this period, voluntary withdrawals are not allowed via PAWS.

Students can no longer voluntary withdrawal from classes

Grades will be posted based on those assigned by instructors.

Students are responsible for consulting the course syllabus for specific instructor policies regarding such matters as penalties for missing the first class, an exam, an assignment or a project. These may include, among the other things, being dropped or withdrawn from a course.

Limits on Withdrawals with a Grade of W

Students are allowed to withdraw with a grade of W a maximum of six times in their undergraduate careers at Georgia State.

The limit on withdrawals does not apply if a student withdraws from all classes during a term before the midpoint. However, students are only allowed to withdraw from all classes prior to the midpoint twice without having their withdrawals count against the limit. Students who withdraw from all classes a third or subsequent time will automatically receive a grade of WF in their classes if they have reached their limit of Ws.

It is possible that a student will withdraw from more than one class in a particular semester and not have enough Ws left to use a W in all those classes. In that case, classes will be awarded a W based on the date and time the student initiated the withdrawal from that class. For example, if a student had taken five Ws in their career at Georgia State and then withdrew from three of the four classes in which the student is enrolled, the student’s sixth W allowed would be assigned to the class from which the student withdrew first. The student would receive a WF in the other two classes. In these cases, students may make an appeal to the University Advisement Center or the student’s Office of Academic Advisement to shift the W from one class to another. Such requests must be made no later than the end of the subsequent semester in which the student withdrew from the classes. (Whether a student is enrolled in the semester after the semester in which the student withdrew from the classes does not change this time limit.) Students may not shift Ws between semesters.

The following types of withdrawals do not count against the limit on withdrawals with a grade of W.

Emergency withdrawals.

Grades of WF (withdrawal failing).

Grade of WM (withdrawal military).

Withdrawals taken in semesters before Fall Semester 2006.

Withdrawals taken at other institutions.

This policy applies to all degree-seeking undergraduate students. It does not apply to non-degree students (such as post baccalaureate and transient students).